It should come to no surprise to those who know the liberal reputation of CNN that they have decided to rerun Christiane Amanpour’s "God’s Muslim Warriors" during prime time on the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The more logical choice on a day where the country remembers those who were killed by an insidious act of terror might be a retrospective on what happened that day, or a look at the lives of some of the victims. Instead, anyone who tunes in between 8 pm and 10 pm Eastern will see this bias-tinged examination of Islamic fundamentalism, which Amanpour introduced by saying, "God's Muslim warriors -- they are much feared and little understood."
My previous post on NewsBusters took the Amanpour documentary to task for its rather sympathetic treatment of the "plight" of Muslims in America, particularly after 9/11, and for putting a positive spin on the hijab, the veil that devout Muslim women wear, and on Islam’s treatment of women.
The documentary also vilified critics of Islamic fundamentalism in the West by labeling Dutch politician Geert Wilders and his supporters as "far right politicians."
Over the past days, CNN has run promos for this upcoming rebroadcast. The narration for one promo asked, "Six years after 9/11, how much do we really know about Islam? Christiane Amanpour investigates ‘God’s Muslim Warriors.’"
While Amanpour does a decent job at presenting some of the history of modern Islamic radicalism (particularly in highlighting the influence of the 20th-century Muslim Brotherhood propagandist Sayyid Qutb), anyone who tunes into to this rebroadcast will learn less about Islam as a faith and more about the mainstream media’s slanted treatment of issues related to this religion.